As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Power supplies are used in information handling systems to provide electrical energy to an information handling system and the various information handling resources thereof. In many applications, power supplies convert alternating current (AC) electrical energy (e.g., from a public power grid) to direct current (DC) electrical energy, and deliver the DC electrical energy to information handling resources via suitable electrical conductors (e.g., one or more power buses coupling information handling resources to the power supplies).
In many implementations, power supplies are capable of being provided in a redundant configuration. For example, power demands of an information handling system (or a collection of a plurality of information handling systems) may require an amount of power significantly less than that of the capacity of the available power supplies. Nonetheless, to ensure adequate power is provided in the event of a failure of an individual power supply, a particular number of power supplies may be enabled (e.g., made “active”) so as to provide a desired level of redundancy, despite the fact that the aggregate capacity of the enabled power supplies may be well in excess of that required to satisfy the power requirements of a system.
One downside of providing redundancy in a modular server system configured to receive one or more modular information handling systems is that a portion of the available power of the power supplies is not used. However, in some instances, such unused power could possibly be used to increase performance of the information handling systems and other information handling resources of the server system. Accordingly, it may be desirable to enable a mode of operation, known as an extended power performance mode, allowing power supplies used for redundancy to allow for oversubscription, such that power capacity of such redundant power supplies may be used to increase performance.